Modular Cellular Telephone
xanadu
Posts: 3,347
This company is trying to generate interest in a cell phone with modular components.
http://phonebloks.com/
[video=youtube_share;oDAw7vW7H0c]
http://phonebloks.com/
[video=youtube_share;oDAw7vW7H0c]
Comments
Making an enclosure for each component will eat up space, money and weight. Anyone who has taken apart a cell phone knows all those components are aggressively squished together. They don't lend themselves to being separated out in their own enclosure.
I think I've just scratched the surface of the many problems with this type of phone.
While they're all clamoring to have a phone like this made I hope they also ask for wings to attach to our cars so we can use them as airplanes (preferably to be attached with just two screws).
Sorry this came out more negative than intended. I was attempting to poke fun at a graphic artists idea of electronic design.
It would be nice if phones were easier to repair. I kind of liked the way some PDAs had sockets which allowed things like cameras to be added.
I wonder if some version of a modular phone would be possible. I don't think the sort of phone suggested by video is practical.
And with worthy a worthy goal, waste reduction etc etc.
Seems to me though that the proposed solution will end up consuming more resources and creating more waste than it fixes. He has just not thought it through very well.
1) Making a phone with separate blocks for all the parts we expect will use two or three times more materials than an integrated solution.
2) All those blocks need connecting electrically. That's a lot of hardware and gold plated connectors.
3) Those connections, electrical and physical, lower reliability dramatically. A lot more waste in one go.
4) All those little blocks, especially those, you might buy to customize, require packaging, inventory, delivery etc etc. A huge waste of extra materials, energy, expense, effort.
5) Realistically a block that dies is going to cause it's owner to go and buy a new phone. They are not going to search around trying to find the block they need. (Assuming they know which one it is). They are not going to order it on line and wait.
6) Realistically those blocks will not be cheap, replacement will be expensive hence more of 5)
7) Physically you will end up with a much bigger heavier phone. Or it will fall apart like my lego constructions the first day I take it out and about.
I could go on. I think we can be confident that there is no crowd that will gather around this idea. Or can we?
Clearly the idea presented here at least doubles that cost. Totally the opposite of the intended effect.
We should all send our concerns to this young guy. His email is in the page linked to above.
The PC has been built from components for decades.
A PC has a huge box, mostly full of air. There are buses for expansion, ISA, MCA, PCI, etc. Mother boards can be swapped. Processors can be swapped. Graphics and other cards can be swapped.
Great. I don't know about you but 99% of the time all that overhead of allowing for expansion goes unused.
Personally, over the decades I have found that when it's time for an upgrade it's time for a new machine. That new processor won't fit the socket. Newer bigger RAMs won't fit the slots. Graphics cards need a different bus connector. Oh, and now I need USB or SATA or whatever. And what ever happened to my parallel and serial ports? And so on and so on. I used to save parts from old PC "just in case". Until I realized I had a huge box of old bits that are of no use anywhere anymore.
In the business world machines don't get upgraded, or even repaired much. They run them for years and the next upgrade cycle. Repairing ones that die is more expensive to organize than just swapping in a new box.
In theory it's a beautiful concept. Reality has a way of messing with the tidiest theories, though.
-Phil
A couple of years back I bought the cheapest phone I could find that day. It was a little Samsung. When the battery started to not hold it's charge I went back to the store to get a new one.
The girl in the store looked at the phone, then asked "Where did you buy this?". They did not stock them anymore and she had never seen one.
Of course the battery was an integral part of the back of the phone so no off the shelf replacement was possible. Ordering a new one would take a week and cost more than the phone did originally!
The "two little screws that hold it all together" seemed interesting in itself, I would love to see how that is supposed to work. I guess like a ZIF socket slides to hold pins in place, but that is a lot of pins. The tolerances will be extremely tight for that to work.
I hope they do generate interest and get to explore their ideas but I will have to sideline this one.
When you first introduce the phone you need to define the interfaces between all the modules.
Then, how long will it take before that standard is no longer practical?
Take something as simple as:
Batteries: My first Cel-phone(Nokia 2110) which had a Ni-mh bttery. That one lasted me from 1996 to 2005. And my next phones have all used some sort of Lithium-based tech. Different voltages, different charging techniques, different ways of measuring remaining charge.
SIMs: My first phone used a 'standard' 5V SIM, but at the same time there were phones using the 'whole card'. Yeah, the entire CC-sized plastic.
Then came dual-voltage 3V/5V SIMs, 3V-only SIMs, micro SIM and even Nano-SIMs...
Antenna: My Nokia had an extensible antenna for 900MHz, and even a socket at the bottom for external antenna(which it really didn't need).
Later phones had it completely internally. Today, I believe GSM uses 800MHz, 900MHz, 1800MHz, 2100MHz, 2600MHz here in Europe.
My first phone had a B/W text-screen and no camera... Compare it with the iPhone 5 my office equipped me with?
There's BlueTooth, NFC and God only knows what else integrated in them. Who can predict what else will be packed into a phone in the future?
That means you'd need a very open and general bus, something like PCI, to support new devices.
you also need to contend with drivers and all the hassle that entails...
lets take a look at a device from a standpoint of wearing parts ..
Here are things I would like to have as * field serviceable parts *
Batt
USB IO jack
Screen
and Flash storage
what is funny is that back in the early 2000's I had the same Idea ........
I saw how a moto microTAC batt had pins on the inside and out ( the latter was for a drop charger )
My idea was to have a screen and a flip out KB ( Like some of the sony clie's had at the time )
then on the back was stackable modules ....... so you can stack batts on batts on lets say a CF/SD reader .
Or heck add a GPS or WiFi .... or a Cam .
remember I was ponderng this at the same time that Ihad a handspring visor . and its modules .
The bottom flap ( like on a microtac) was a PCMCIA male interface so you can shove the phone in a laptop as a (CDMA at teh tme ) modem . or to browse it as a HDD to Drag files on and off it .
I Still want to see all phones sold be radio-less at first for celluiar use .... I want to see a uSD card sized card that has all the needed radio HW besides the Antennas . this way phones are just mini tablets and these crazy cell providors cant lock it down or us there phones as a crutch .. every phone is a world phone ......
OK you need 50 Ohm for the ants and you need Power and a few IO lines .....
and put all the GSM OR CDMA OR 4G SIM IMEI and that stuff as part of the module .